Coming to America




 

 

Benjamin Franklin stood among Pennsylvania's most vociferous critics of this type of servitude. In a famous article published in his Pennsylvania Gazette, Franklin sardonically derided the home government for "not suffer[ing] our mistaken Assemblies to make any Law for preventing or discouraging the Importation of Convicts from Great Britain, for this kind Reason, 'That such Laws are against the Publick Utility, as they tend to prevent the IMPROVEMENT and WELL PEOPLING of the Colonies.’" To convey the anxiety created by this practice, the author proposed that the colony transplant its own felons to Britain, specifically "in St. James Park, in the Spring Gardens and other Places of Pleasure about London; in the Gardens of all the Nobility and Gentry throughout the Nation; but particularly in the Gardens of the Prime Ministers, the Lords of Trade and Members of Parliament; for to them we are most particularly obliged." Franklin thus repudiated notion that indenturing these "Human Serpents" redounded to the benefit of "Public Utility." 
The law to which Franklin referred had been submitted to (and disapproved by) the Board of Trade in 1748. However, many its features stemmed as far back as the session of 1721–1722. The Pennsylvania Assembly at that time passed an act placing a £5 duty on each convict imported into the colony. Similar to the law in Britain, merchants or captains were also required to "enter into bonds" of £50 per felon imported. 
The act further stipulated that ships carrying servants must furnish, within twenty-four hours after landing, one or more justices of the peace with a list of all those being imported, including information on the servants’ crimes. If the justices found such individuals fit to enter the colony, they would grant the merchant or captain a "certificate of permission." Violation of this statute made servants free, regardless of previous contractual agreements. 
Later sessions of the Pennsylvania Assembly would either reinforce the statutes of the 1722 law or expand its scope. For example, the session of 1729–1730 passed an act extending regulations for convicts to such groups as vagrants, lunatics, infants, and the impotent. Pennsylvania legislators showed apprehension toward sending these laws to the Board of Trade for approval, however. In 1748 the Assembly finally decided to submit such a bill to the board; of course, the legislature had delayed disclosure of the law (passed in 1743) until the five-year time limit for such procedures expired. 
The Assembly's concerns were warranted, as the Broad of Trade dismissed the 1743/1748 bill and ordered the nullification of the other acts that had "never been presented to the Crown for approbation as they ought to have been." In spite of these directives, the legislature maintained the 1730 law that placed a £5 levy on each of the specified persons, with a 1749 supplementary act providing for the collection of the duties. Such regulations and procedures retained the force of law until 1789, when state legislation barred the importation of convicts and the "indignant poor." 
Laws regulating the importation of the "undesirables" did not completely dispel fears, though. Colonists still felt apprehensive about the potential penetration of convict runaways from Maryland, which had been a chief location for transported felons. This situation partly explains the various advertisements in Pennsylvania newspapers for "fugitive servants" from Maryland.
 
Redemptioner System
Emerging in the 18th century, the redemptionist system allowed indebted migrants to avoid indenture by repaying the costs of their passage within a certain period of time after arrival in the colony. However, if the migrant proved unable to reimburse the merchant for the passage, the former was sold as an indentured servant for the specified amount of the voyage. This form of indentured servitude had a particularly prominent role in the Pennsylvania market; Philadelphia became a chief port in which redemptioner servants were procured by buyers from across and outside of the colony/state.
During the early stages of the system, redemptioners had the liberty to leave the ships and seek out relations who would repay their debts. However, such an arrangement proved problematic, as some redemptioners did not return. A merchant could take legal action, but this course of action could consume much time and did not always bring the defected redemptioner to "justice." As Grubb noted, "They [the merchants] eventually solved the problem by keeping redemptioners on board until payment was rendered and by requiring payment within 10 to 14 days of arrival." While the period of repayment was later extended to 30 days, this policy increased the likelihood of the redemptioner being indentured, since such constraints inhibit his/her ability to make contact with relations.
Whereas servants indentured in Britain had a fixed contract length before their sale in the colonies/states, an indentured redemptioner would negotiate the terms of the contract with the buyers. Gottlieb Mittelberger, a German migrant who travelled with redemptioners on a ship to Philadelphia, has provided a description of this process,
"[T]hey [the redemptioners] negotiate with them [the buyers] as to the length of the period for which they will go into service in order to pay off their passage, the whole amount of which they generally still owe. When an agreement has been reached, adult persons by written contract bind themselves to serve for three, four, five, or six years, according to their health and age. The very young, between the ages of ten and fifteen, have to serve until they are twenty-one, however."
Thus, unlike the above forms of indentured servitude, the terms of sale for redemptioner servitude had a "fixed" price but a "variable" length of service.
Other aspects distinguished redemptioner system from its indentured counterparts as well. Among these points of contrast, the "most remarkable difference between the two," as Abbot Smith noted, "was…that the redemptionist system applied generally to people who emigrated in whole families, bringing their goods and chattels with them and seeking a new home." Certain merchants preferred this arrangement because it diffused the risks and losses stemming from mortality rates during the passage. If a migrant were to die after the "halfway" point of the voyage, the other members of a family would assume the expenses of that person's passage. The Pennsylvania Assembly eventually passed a law in 1765 that forbade this practice, though masters of ships attempted to circumvent its restrictions.
German migrants accounted for a majority of redemptioners, with those from the Palatinate being the most numerous within this group. Palatinate redemptioners would descend the Rhine, crossing several principalities, until they reached the port of Rotterdam in Holland. An agent, termed a "Newlander," sometimes led these journeys. Once the groups reached Rotterdam, they sought passage to the "new land" through one of merchants or companies stationed at the port; those who could not immediately afford the fare entered into the agreements specified above. After disembarking from the port, the ships carrying the redemptioners stopped at an English port, usually Cowes, to obtain official clearance to sail to the colonies. After the revolution, this latter formality was no longer necessary.
While the terms of the redemptionist system allowed those without financial resources to obtain passage to the colonies/states, some who were able to pay the fare nevertheless opted to enter into indenture. Robert Heavner has noted that these individuals intended to use their indentures to acquire some form of education, which usually involved learning the English language. Indeed, a provision for education was not uncommon in the contracts of indentured redemptioners in general.
The system of redemptioner servitude also appeared among migrants from the Britain. In some cases British redemptioners traveled on the same ship as their indentured counterparts. For example, an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette read:
"TO BE SOLD, THE Indentures of a few SERVANTS and REDEMPTIONERS, arrived in the Ship Philadelphia, from LONDONDERRY. For Terms, apply to Captain John WINNING, on board said Ship, at William Allen, Esquire Wharff. January 10, 1774.
Obviously, the redemptioners in this case were those unable to repay the merchant in the specified period.
 
Runaway servants
Heavner has noted that laws "dealing with shirking [and] running away were in essence laws against ‘stealthe’ or theft of the master's property—his right to the servant's labor services."The formation and elaboration of such laws, in other words, reflects the emergence of a commodities market system. Thus, fugitive servant advertisements would appear alongside runaway slave notices, as both represented (in different ways) a denial of the owner's rights to property. 
Advertisements for runaway servants generally contained a description of the individual and the monetary reward/compensation involved in his/her apprehension. As an illustration, a notice in the American Weekly Mercury read in part:
"Run away from Joseph Townshend and Thomas Hayward of Chester Pennsylvania, the 13th of this Instant May. Two Servant Men, the one named Edmund Jones, a Shropshire Man, aged 26 Years, a Tall slender Man, long Vissage, brown hair, having on a felt Hat…a blew Jacket and Leather Breeches…The other named Thomas Coombes…aged about 22 Years…round Vissage, and a flat Nose, a Scare on his right Cheek occasioned by falling into the Fire…Whoever shall take up and secure the said Servants so that their said Master may have them again shall have 5 Pounds Reward for each of them and Reasonable Charges paid by us."
The advertisement might make an additional comment at the end of the description to better facilitate the capture of the servant.
As means of regulating the movement of servants, Pennsylvania law stipulated that such persons must travel with a pass or their indenture. "Unknown" or suspicious individuals that could not furnish such a document were subject to confinement in a workhouse. The sheriff's office would then "advertise" the apprehended person in an attempt to inform the master (if there was a master) of his/her whereabouts. If a master did reclaim the servant, the former would assume all charges involved in the latter's capture and captivity.
Servants attempted to avoid apprehension by creating or procuring forged passes. Advertisements for runaways sometimes mentioned that the servants could be carrying these false "freedom pass." A notice in the Pennsylvania Gazette, for example, stated that a Robert Beverlin "has a counterfeit pass with him, signed with the name Veazey, done by a schoolmaster, in New Castle prison." Another strategy involved altering passes issued by masters, usually changing the stipulated "time of return.". One runaway advertisement even warned that the servant, Thomas Mason, had "his old indentures with him, with which ’tis supposed he will endeavour to pass." 
The penalty for runaways entailed the lengthening of the time served. By the 18th century, Pennsylvania law stipulated "five days for every days absence, after the expiration of…Servitude," with the additional provision that the captured runaway make "Satisfaction for the Damages, costs, and chairges."
After securing the runaway servant, the master would submit to the courts a claim enumerating the days of the servant's absence and the expenditures involved in his/her capture. The courts, in turn, would determine the extra time or "money charge" required in order to compensate the master, though a money payment was unlikely.
 
Voyage and Arrival
The voyage of servants to the colonies/states was quite onerous and hazardous. For German redemptioners, the journey proved especially long and arduous, as they had to traverse down the Rhine to Rotterdam, paying tolls at thirty-six custom houses along the way. Once in Holland, they faced a seven-to twelve week voyage to the colonies/states. Nevertheless, servants of various types faced (in different ways) many hardships in their trip across the Atlantic. Insufficient food provisions and the spread of disease represented two of the most serious (and common) afflictions involved in the passage. 
With regard to the former, unscrupulous merchants seeking to increase their profit even further might have supplied their ships with meager provisions. Such practices appeared most commonly among transporters of redemptioners, though similar depredations can be found on the ships of other servants. As Sharon Salinger observed,
"Many masters [carrying redemptioners] were notorious for providing inadequate provisions for only the first half of the trip and then virtually starving their captives to the journey's end."
Since transportation rules (prior to 1765 for ships landing in Pennsylvania) specified that families assumed responsibility for the cost of a deceased member only if that member died after the halfway point, providing adequate provisions for the first half of the journey helped the merchant ensure a "return" on the "investment."
An inadequate supply of food could have resulted from less sinister causes as well. Masters of ships occasionally misjudged the necessary supply. Shortfalls in provisions might have also been due to the poor quality of the food, as opposed to a failure to adequately supply the ship. After a number of weeks the food spoiled to point of being inedible, thus accounting for reductions in the distributed rations. Aside from the specific reason of insufficient provisions, the issue remained an unpleasant "theme" in the passage to the colonies/states. 
The spread of diseases among the passengers represented another "misery" of the journey. Mittelberger provided a description of the situation:
"On one of these voyages a father often becomes infected by his wife and children, or a mother by her small children, or even both parents by their children, or sometimes whole families one by the other, so that many times numerous corpses lie on the cots next to those who are still alive, especially when contagious diseases rage on board."
Sickly migrants and servants became an issue of concern for the colonies receiving them, with the specter of contagious diseases demanding a course of action. 
In the face of this alarming situation, Pennsylvania officials began to debate the idea of quarantining those diseased passengers for the period of their recovery. In 1741, Governor George Thomas petitioned the Assembly to create a pesthouse for the ill as an alternative to keeping them on board the ship. After the Pennsylvania legislature approved the idea, funds were appropriated to purchase Province Island, at the mouth of the Schuylkill River, as the location for the pesthouse and hospital. While such an initiative contributed to preventing the spread of diseases from afflicted migrants, the conditions on the island, according to one account, created the image of "a land of the living dead, a vault full of living corpses." 
Pennsylvania officials made further efforts to reduce the rate of disease among passengers by addressing the conditions on board the ship. The Assembly argued that a quarantine merely served as an immediate response to a contagious cargo; the central cause of the problem involved the crowded quarters of ships, especially those carrying the Irish and Germans. Consequently, the legislature passed a law in 1750 to limit the number of passengers per ship. According to the statutes of the act, six feet of "Bed Place" was required for every four "whole freights," with a passenger above fourteen years of age constituting a "whole freight." In 1765 the legislature passed a supplemental law that added a "vertical" standard to "horizontal" space specified in the previous act, stipulating three feet nine inches of "Bed Place" at the forepart of the ship and two feet nine inches in the cabin and steerage. Moreover, vessels that carried emigrants were to be fumigated and washed with vinegar twice per week; ships transporting Germans were to have a surgeon on board to care for the ill. 
However, the actual implementation of these laws proved difficult, and the results of such legislation were limited. Lacking the means of enforcement, as well as support from the home government, many of the baneful practices involved in the trade continued. As Salinger observed, "Without the interference of colonial officials, merchants’ behavior went unchecked and the route to the promised land was lined with the horrors of disease and death." 
Upon arrival in Pennsylvania, merchants or captains of the ships transporting the human cargo were required to register a list of passengers with the mayor's office, a magistrate or recorder. By 1717, masters of ships carrying German and other non-British redemptioners had the additional obligation of furnishing an "account" of the "character" of the individuals onboard; furthermore, the emigrants had to "proclaim" before a magistrate or recorder their allegiance to "his Majesty and his Government." Those transporting convicts, as noted, were required to provide one or more justices of the peace with a list enumerating the passengers and their respective transgressions.
 After these procedures, the master of a ship could begin to sell the servants.
"[T]he captains or merchants," as Herrick described, "usually inserted in the newspapers advertisements which gave descriptions of the passengers for sale, their nationality, age, sex, and the service for which they were said to be fitted."
As an illustration, one such advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette read:
"SERVANTS, Just imported in the Ship Hugh and James, Captain McCarthy, from Ireland, and to be sold by CONYNGHAM and NESBITT, A PARCEL of likely young Men, Women, and Boys, among which are, Shoemakers, Taylors, Linen, Worsted and Stockings Weavers, Blacksmiths, Nailors, Carpenters, Joyners, Butchers, Gardiners, Distillers, Millers, a Mill wright, Soap boiler, Sugar boiler, Sadler, Brazier, Upholsterer, Tobacco Spinner, Snuff maker, Currier, Barber, Cooper, Bricklayer, Breeches maker, and a Printer."
In some cases the terms of indenture were mentioned in the advertisement as well.
The sale of indentured servants usually occurred on the ship, with the servants being "displayed" to the prospective buyers. The latter would evaluate the physical characteristics of the servants as well as inquire about their respective skills. When buyers found a particular servant fitting for their purposes, they would pay the merchant or captain the cost of the voyage and take possession of the indenture. The new master was then obligated to register the servant with the mayor's office, a magistrate or recorder. Servants not sold by the intended departure date would be housed in the merchant's buildings, where they would wait until their indentures were purchased.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude_in_Pennsylvania

Palatine Immigration to America
History of the Palatine Immigration to Pennsylvania
as written by Daniel Rupp, 1876

At different periods, various causes and diverse motives induced Germans to abandon their Vaterland. Since 1606, millions have left their homes, the dearest spots on earth, whither the heart always turns. Religious persecution, political oppression drove thousands to Pennsylvania - to the asylum from the harrassed and depressed sons and daughters of the relics of the Reformation, whither William Penn himself invited the persecuted of every creed and religious opinion.

From 1682 to 1776, Pennsylvania was the central point of emigration from Germany, France and Switzerland. Penn's liberal views, and illiberal course of the government of New York toward the Germans, induced many to come to this Province

The period from 1702 - 1727 marks an era in the early German emigration. Between forty and fifty thousand left their native country "their hearths where soft affections dwell." The unparalleled ravages and desolations by the troops of Louis XIV under Turenne, were the stern prelude to bloody persecutions. To escape the dreadful sufferings awaiting them, German and other Protestants emigrated to the English colonies in America.

In 1705, a number of German Reformed residing between Wolfenbuttel and Halberstadt, fled to Neuwied, a town of Rhenish Prussia, where they remained some time, and then went to Holland - there embarked, in 1707, for New York. Their frail ship was, by reason of adverse winds, carried into the Delaware bay. Determined, however, to reach the place for which they were destined - to have a home among the Dutch, they took the overland route from Philadelphia to New York. On entering the fertile, charming valley in New Jersey, which is drained by the meandering Musconctcong, the Passaic and their tributaries, and having reached a goodly land, they resolve to remain in what is now known as the German Valley of Morrison county. From this point, the Germans have spread into Somerset, Bergan and Essex couties.

At Elizabethtown, where the first English settlement was made in New Jersey, 1664, there were many Germans prior to 1730. There was also a German settlement at a place known as Hall Mill, which is some thiry miles from Philadelphia.

In 1708 and 1709, thirty three thousand, on an invitation of Queen Anne, left their homes in the Rhine country for London, where some twelve or thirteen thousand arrived in the summer of 1708. There were books and papers dispersed in the Palatinate, with the Queen's picture on the books, and the title page in letters of gold, which, on that account, were called, 'The Golden Book', to encourage the Palatines to come to England, in order to be sent to the Carolinas, or to other of Her Majesty's colonies, to be settled there. These were, for some time, in a destitute condition - wholly depending upon the charity of the inhabitants of the English metropolis.

In the fall of 1709, one hundred and fifty families, consisting of six hundred and fifty Palatines, were transported, under the tutelar auspices of Christian De Grafferied and Ludwig Michell, natives of Switzerland, to North Carolina. As in all new countries, the Palatines were exposed to trials, privations and hardships incident to border life. One hundred of them were massacred by the Tuskarora Indians, Sept 22, 1707. The descendants of these Germans reside in different parts of the State.

At the time these Palatines left England for North Carolina, the Rev. Joshua Kockerhal, with a small band of his persecuted Lutheran brethren, embarked at London 1708, for New York, where they arrived in December, and shortly therafter he, with his little flock, settled on some lands up the Hudson river, which they had received from the crown of England. Two thousand one hundred acres, granted a patent Dec. 18, 1709. The Queen also bestowed upon Kocherthal five hundred acres as a glebe (transcriber's note: glebe is a plot of land belonging or yielding profit to an English parish church) for the Lutheran church. Newburg is the place of this settlement.

In the meantime, while those were transported to North Carolina, and to New York, three thousand six hundred Germans were transfered to Ireland; seated upon unimproved lands in the county of Limerick, near Arbela and Adair; others, in the town of Rathkeale, where their descendants still reside, and are known to this day, as German Palatines, preserving their true German character for industry, thrift and honorable dealing. Persons who have lately visited them say, "They are the most wealthy and prosperous farmers in the county of Limerick." They still speak the German language.

Of the large number that came to England, in 1708 and 1709, seven thousand, after having suffered great privations, returned, half naked and in despondency, to their native country. Ten thousand died for want of sustenance, medical attendance, and from other causes. Some perished on ships. The survivors were transported to English colonies in America. Several thousand had embarked for the Silly Islands, a group south-west of England; but never reached their intended destination.

Ten sails of vessels were freighted with upwards of four thousand Germans for New York. They departed the 25th December, 1709 and after a six months' tedious voyage reached New York in June, 1710. On the inward passage, and immediately on landing, seventeen hundred died. The survivors were encamped in tents, the had brought with them from England, on Nutting, now Governor's Island. Here they remained til late in autumn, when about fourteen hundred were removed, one hundred miles up the Hudson river, to Livingston Manor. The widowed women, sickly men and orphaned children remained in New York. The orphans were apprenticed by Governor Hunter, to citizens of New York and of New Jersey.

Those settled on Hudson river were under indenture to serve Queen Anne as grateful subjects, to manufacture tar and raise hemp, in order to repay the expenses of their transport and cost of subsistence, to the amount of ten thousand pounds sterling, which had been advanced by parliamentary grant. A supply of naval stores from this arrangement, had been confidently anticipated. The experiment proved a complete failure. There was mismanagement.

The Germans, being unjustly oppressed, became dissatisfied both with their treatment, and with their situation. Governor Hunter resorted to violent measures to secure obedience to his demands. In this, too, he failed. One hundred and fifty families, to escape the certainty of famishing, left, in the autumn of 1712, for Schoharie Valley, some sixty miles, northwest of Livingston Manor. They had no open road, no horses to carry or haul their luggage - this they loaded on roughly constructed sleds, and did tug those themselves, through a three feet deep snow, which greatly obstructed their progress - their way was through an unbroken forest, where and when the wind was howling its hibernal dirge through leaf-stripped trees, amid falling snow. It took them three full weeks. Having reached Schoharie, they made improvements upon the lands Queen Anne had granted them. Here they remained about ten years, when owing to some defect in their titles, they were deprived of both lands and improvements. In the spring of 1723, thirty-three families removed and settled in Pennsylvania, in Tulpehocken, some fifteen miles west of Reading. A few years afterward, others followed them.

The other dissatisfied Germans at Schoharie, who did to choose to follow their friends to Pennsylvania sought for and found a future home on the frontier in Mohawk Valley.

Queen Anne, who well understood the policy of England, to retain her own subjects at home, encouraged the emigration of Germans, sent some of those whom she had invited in 1708 and 1709, to Virginia; settled them above the falls of the Rappahannock, in Spotsylvania county, where they commenced a town, called Germanna. The locality was unpropitious. They moved some miles further up the river where they soon drove well. From this settlement they spread into several counties in Virginia, and into North Carolina.

Because of the relentless persecution and oppression in Switzerland, a large body of defenseless Mennonites fled from the Cantons of Zurich; of Bern and Schaffhausen, about the year 1672, and took up their abode in Alsace, above Strasbourg, on the Rhine, where they remained till they emigrated, 1708, to London, thence to Pennsylvania. They lived some time at German town, and in the vicinity of Philadelphia. In 1712, they purchases a large tract of land from Penn's agents in Pequae, then Chester, now Lancaster county. Here this small colony erected some huts or long cabins, to serve temporarily as shelters.

Here the time and again persecuted and oppressed Swiss, separated from friends and much that makes life agreeable, hoped to unmolested begin anew. Here, surrounded on all sides by severed clans of Indians, they located in the gloomy silent shades of a virgin forest, whose undisturbed solitude was yet uncheered by the murmurs of the honey bee, or the twitterings of the swallow, those never-failing attendants upon the woodman's axe. For the hum and warblings of those, they had not only the shout and song of the tawny sons of the forest, but also the nocturnal howlings of the over watchful dog baying at the sheeny queen of the night, as she moves stately on, reflecting her burrowed light. By way of variety, their ears were nightly greeted by the shrill, startling whoop of the owl, from some stridulous branches overhanging their cabins, and bending to the breeze of evening, or by the sinister croakings of some doleful night songsters in the continuous thickets.

This Swiss settlement formed the nucleus, or centre of a rapidly increasing Swiss, French and German population, in the Eden of Pennsylvania.

Hereafter, the influent accession from the European continent steadily increased, so much so, as to excite attention, and create no small degree of alarm of the "fearful of the day".

Scarcely had the Mennonites commenced making their lands arable, when they sent a commissioner, Martin Kendig, to Germany and to Switzerland, to induce others to come to Pennsylvania. He was successful. There were large accessions to this new colony in 1711 and 1717 and a few years later. So great was the influx at this time of Swiss and German immigrants, as to call forth, as already stated, public attention, especially of those in office.

Governor Keith, says the record, "observed to the Board - the Governor's council - that great numbers of foreigners from Germany, strangers to our language and constitution, having lately been imported into this Province, daily dispensed themselves immediatly after landing, without producing certificates from whence they came or what they are, and, as they seemed to have first landed in Britain, and afterwards to have left without any license from government, or as far as they know, so, in the same manner, they behaved here, without making the least application to him or any of the magistrates. That, as this practice might be of very dangerous consequence, since, by the same method, any number of foreigners, from any nation whatever, enemies as well as friends, might throw themselves upon us." This was in 1717.

In 1719, Jonathan Dickinson remarked; "We are daily expecting ships from London, which bring over Palatines, in number about six or seven thousand. We had a parcel that came over about five years ago, who purchased land about sixty miles west of Philadelphia, and proved quiet and industrious."

After 1716, Germans, a few French and Dutch, began to penetrate the forest or wilderness - some twenty, thirty, forty, others from sixty to seventy miles, west and north from the metropolis. Large German settlements had sprung up at different points within the present limits of Montgomery and Berks counties. At Goshenhoppen there was a German Reformed church, organized as early as 1717. Some Mennonites coming from the Netherlands, settled along the Pakilmomink (Perkioming) and Schkipeck (Skippack) a few years later.

The Germans were principally farmers. They depended more upon themselves than upon others. They wielded the mattock, the axe and the maul, and by the power of brawny arms rooted up the grubs, removed saplings, felled the majestic oaks, laid low the towering hickory; prostrated, where they grew, the walnut, poplar, chestnut - cleaved such as suited the purpose, into rails for fences - persevered untiringly until the forest was changed into arable field. They were those of whom Governor Thomas said, 1738: 'This Province has been for some years the asylum of the distressed Protestants of the Palatinate, and other parts of Germany; and I believe, it may truthfully he said, that the present flourishing condition of it is in a great measure owing to the industry of those people; it is not altogether the fertility of the soil, but the number and industry of the people, that makes a country flourish.'

England understood well the true policy to increase the number of the people in her American colonies - she retained at home her own subjects, encourage the emigration of Germans; by this England was the gainer, without an diminution of her inhabitants.

Unreasonable as it may seen, it was this class of Germans, that were so much feared, "whose numbers from Germany at this rate, would soon produce a German colony here, and perhaps such a one as Britain once received from Saxony in the fifth century."

In 1719, some twenty families of Selwartzenau Taufer arrived at Philadelphia. Some settle in German town, others located on the Skippack, in Oley.

About 1728 and 1729, the Germans crossed the Susquehanna, located within the present limits of York and Adams county, and made improvements under discouraging circumstances.

The tide of emigration from the continent of Europe was strong. Various influences were brought to bear upon the increase of the influx. In Pennsylvania, the Newlander, tools in the hands of shipowners, merchants and importers, contributed much to induce Germans to leave their homes. There were, besides these, another class, who were active in prevailing upon the inhabitants of Germany to abandon their country for the new world. These two classes, Newlander and speculators, resorted to diverse arts in order to effect their purposes. They gave these, whom they desired to abandon their homes, assurances, endorsed by solemn promises, that the Poet's Arcadia had at last been found in America. To posess this, in Louisiana, on the banks of the Mississippi, several thousands left Germany in 1715 and 1717, under the leadership of the notorious John Law, who instead of bringing them immediately on their arrival in America, to the promised Eden, on the banks of the Father of the Western Water, landed them on the pontines (transcriber's note: land bridge) of Biloxi near the Mobile. Here they were exposed, without protection against their many foes, for five years. Not one of them entered the promised paradise. Two thousand were consigned to the grave. The pallid survivors - about three hundred, finally seated on the banks of the Mississippi, 1722, some thirty or forty miles above New Orleans. Law had, through his agents, engaged twelve thousand Germans and Swiss. The sad fate of those of Biloxi was spread abroad, which deterred other from coming to participate in the promised blessings of the Elesyan fields, or to possess the Eldorado.

The three hundred on the Mississippi were very poor for some years. They had been reduced to the most extreme poverty. From these poor but honorable Germans, have spring says Gayarre, some of the most respectable citizens of Louisiana, and some of the wealthiest sugar planters in the State. Their descendants forgot the German language, and have adopted the French; but the name of many clearly indicate the blood coursing in their veins; nevertheless more than one name has been so frenchified as to appear of Gallic parentage. The coast, so poor and beggarly at first, and once known as the German coast, has since become the producer and the receptacle of such wealth, so as to be now know by the appropriate name of Coast of Gold.

In the spring of 1734, some Lutherans, known in history as Saltzburgers, from Saltzburg, a city of Upper Austria, arrived in Georgia. In Europe, they too had been the victims of bloody persecution. They had been driven from their country and their homes, on account of their unswerving attachment to the principles of the Gospel.

This devotedly pious band of Christians was accompanied by their attached pastors, the Rev'd John Martin Boltzius and Israel Christian Gronau, and an excellent schoolmaster, Christian Ortman. The Saltzburgers located in Effingham county and styled their first settlement Ebenezer, to express their unfeigned gratitude to the Lord, who had been to them a storing rock, a house of defence, to save them.

This German colony received accessions from time to time until they reached, prior to 1745, several hundred families. There were also many Germans residing in Savannah; besides some forty of fifty Moravians in the same state under the pastoral care for the Rev. David Nitschliman.

The Moravians made no permanent settlement in Georgia. When the Spanish War broke out, they removed, almost to a man, to the State of Pennsylvania, because it was contrary to their religious faith to take up arms in any cause.

In 1738, some arrived in Pennsylvania and located at Bethlehem. In 1740, those who had remained, left Georgia and joined their brethren in Pennsylvania. This, the mission among the Indians in Georgia, after a promising beginning, was at once suspended.

Before the Moravians came to Pennsylvania, a respectable number of Schwenkfelders had arrived, settling in Bucks and Philadelphia county, now Montgomery, Berks and Lehigh. The Schwenkfelders had intended, before leaving their homes in Europe, to embark for Georgia. They however, changed their minds and established themselves in the asylum for the oppressed, Pennsylvania.

In 1732, Monsieur Jean Pierre Pury of Neuchatel, Switzerland visited Carolina. Being encouraged by the government both of England and Carolina, he undertook to settle a colony of Swiss there. In 1732 one hundred and seventy persons were transported. These were soon followed by others. In a short time the colony consisted of three hundred persons. They settled on the north bank of the Savannah, built a town called Purysburgh, about thirty-six miles above the mouth of the river. The colony still continued to increase. In 1734, Pury brought two hundred and seventy persons more from Switzerland. All those were brought from Switzerland at the expense of Pury and several of his friends, who advanced him money for that purpose, he having spent the greatest part of his fortune in the prosecution of that design before he could bring it to execution. Thee were now nearly six hundred souls in this settlement.

This was done in pursuance of a scheme, proposed by Mr. Pury to the Assembly of South Carolina; his scheme was to propel the southern frontier of Carolina with brave and laborious people, such as the Swiss are known to be. The assembly highly approved of this scheme; to assist him in the execution of it, they passed an act, August 20, 1731, which secured to him a reward of £400, upon his bringing over to Carolina a hundred effective men. In this act the Assembly promised also to find provisions, tools, etc, for three hundred persons for one year. Purysburgh in 1747, contained more than one hundred houses tolerably well built.

In Colleton county, on the north bank of North Ediston river, 12 miles from its mouth, stands Wilton, or New London, consisting of 80 houses built by Swiss under the direction of Zuberbhuler, with leave from the Assembly. This town proved detrimental to Purysburgh, being in the heart of the county and near the capital; it drew people thither, who did not care to go to Purysburgh.

From 1740-1755, a great many Palatines were sent to South Carolina, They settled Orangeburg, Cougaree and Wateree. In 1765, upwards of six hundred from the Palatine and Swabia were sent over from London and had a township of land set apart for them.

In 1739, a number of Lutherans and German Reformed purchased a tract of land from General Waldo, and laid out the town Waldoborough, in Lincoln county, Maine. Bremen, a village in the same county, and Frankfort, in Waldo county, were undoubtedly laid out, or settled by Germans, as the names would indicate. During the Spanish and French War, in 1746, Waldoborough was laid in ashes by some Canadian Indians. Some of the inhabitants were massacred, others abducted. Not a few died from the ill-treatment received at the hands of the savages - some made their escape, and were dispersed in Canada. Waldoborough remained in ruins until 1750. In 1751, invited by those in authority, thirty German families, and in 1752, fifteen hundred individuals from Europe, persons of means, settled in Maine.

King George II of Great Britain, held out strong inducements, through very liberal promises, to all who would emigrate into, and settle Nova Scotia, when a considerable body of German, principally Hanoverians, left their country, embarked for America, landed at Chebucto Bay, near Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, where fourteen hundred and fifty-three re-embarked and landed at Marliguish, on the 7th of june, 1753. Here they laid out the flourishing town of Lundenburg. Here they were doomed to experience the same resistance from the natives which the colonists at Halifax had met with, in settling the Peninsula; and the early history of the place contains little else than a constant succession of struggles with the savages in which, notwithstanding the powerful protection they received from the government, they lost many lives. Their attempts at agriculture were therefore restricted within a very narrow compass, and the settlement of the adjoining country was retarded until the French power and influence in Nova Scotia were subdued.

From 1735, settlements in Pennsylvania multiplied rapidly; extended over vast regions, west of the Susquehanna, whither the Scotch-Irish had led the way. The German settlement kept pace with the native.

The Kau-ta-tn-chunk (Kittatiny or Blue Mountain) extending from the Delaware hundreds of miles westwards, was not an insurmountable barrier - that they crossed and laid out farms where shortly afterwards they, their wives and children, were exposed to the torch, hatchet and scalping knife of the savages, and their midnight assault and slaughter. Hundreds fell victims to the relentlessly cruel savage, along the Blue Mountains, south and north of them and along the Susquehanna, as far north as Penn's Creek, from 1754-1763 and even at a later period. Among the massacred were many Germans - more than 300 in all.

Germans massacred, north of the Blue Mountain, within Monroe county, among other were: Guldin, Hoth or Huth, Bomper, Vanaken, Vanflor, Schnell, Hartman, Hage, Brundich, Hellman, Gonderman, Schleich, Muller, Vandelap, Decker, Van Gondie, Brinker. South and north of the same mountain, within the present limits of Northampton, Carbon and Lehigh - more than one hundred were killed. Among them were: Sohn, Klein, Bittenbender, Roth, Schaffer, Ancers, Nitschman, Senseman, Gattermyer, Fabricuius, Schwigert, Leslie, Presser, Depu. Along the same mountain, within the limits of Berks, Lebanon and Dauphin county - Reichelsdorfer, Gerhart, Neidung, Klug, or Kluck, Linderman, Schott, Craushar, Zeissloff, Wunch, Dieppel, Henly, Spitler, Nocker, Maurer, Boshar, Fell, Kuhlmer, Lang, Trump, Yager, Sechler, Schetterly, Sauter, Geiger, Ditzler, Franz, Schnebele, Mosser, Fincher, Hubler, Marloff, Wolf, Handsche, Weisser, Miess, Lebenguth, Motz, Noah, Windelblech, Zeuchmacher, etc.

Prior to 1770, the wilderness of Pennsylvania was penetrated beyond the Allegheny Mountains. Settlements were effected within the present bounds of Westmoreland and other eastern counties of this state. A number of German families had located on the Monongahela as far up as Redstone, Brownsville, Fayette county. Here settled the Weismans, Pressers, Vervalsons, Delongs, Jungs, Martins, Shutts, Peters, Schwartz, Hutters, Cackeys, Abrahams, and others (the first Germans in Western Pennsylvania, located in Greene county. These were two brothers, the Eckerleins of Ephrata, who left there and settle in the depths of the wilderness in 1745. Prior to 1754, Wendel Braun, and his two sons, and Frederik Waltser, located four miles west of Uniontown.), whom that devoted minister of the cross, the Rev. John Conrad Bucher, visited in Nov 1768.
Source: A Collection of upwards of Thirty Thousand Names of German, Swiss, Dutch, French and other Immigrants in Pennsylvania From 1727 to 1776; Prof. I. Daniel Rupp, Second Revised Edition, 1876, Philadelphia.